


A Cheap Funeral

by Armoured_Swampert



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Gen, Some Cursing, Tags will be updated, spoilers for the end of combiner wars!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2015-06-30
Packaged: 2018-04-07 01:12:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4243881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Armoured_Swampert/pseuds/Armoured_Swampert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When word of an ex-subordinate's death reaches Onslaught, he continues to struggle with being a military mech on a peaceful world, and losing the respect of his former soldiers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Cheap Funeral

The solvent dripped down Onslaught’s bodywork, rivulets catching on rivets and cleaning grime out of grooves. His faceplate and visor lay just outside the washrack of his small apartment in the Decepticon slums. After a moment he grunted and reached for a knob, the temperature slightly too hot. After a minute of precise manipulation he got it to the perfect temperature for maximum comfort and cleanliness.

He’d missed this the most on Earth. On previous campaigns and missions with the Secret Service, the sting of any hardship, of any plan shattered by incompetence or sheer bad luck would be soothed with the thought of a warm cleaning session afterwards. On Earth, a grunt would drive a truck with a water tank into their base and hurriedly leave. Disgusting.

Those were the worst weeks of his life. Blast Off had fragged off into orbit until he could find a ride back home. They were being ordered around by an idiot organic who couldn’t lead antdroids to a picnic. At the very least, he hadn’t had to deal with Swindle’s antics.

And now he’d never have to.

***

The call had come last week. Onslaught had pulled open his door (the mechanisms that opened it at a button press had seized up long ago) to reveal a short Autobot with beast kibble. Some kind of rodent. The robot looked up at him and wrinkled his flat nose.

“Eh, Onslaught, right?” He asked in an abrasive, offworld accent. “Name’s Rattrap.” Onslaught stared down at him.

“You’re Starscream’s lackey, aren’t you?” He said before kneeling down to get a closer look at him. “Hm… That alt-mode’s a Z’verein Mole-Rat, correct? So you served on Z’verei.” Rattrap sneered.

“That ain’t important.” He said as he produced a datapad from a waist compartment. He handed it to Onslaught, who raised it to his face and activated the screen.

“I won’t have this debate now,” he replied. “What is this?”

“An invitation to Swindle’s funeral.” Behind his visor, Onslaught’s eyes widened. He looked back to Rattrap. “He died? When?”

“Yesterday, during our little gestalt, ah, debacle. Tried to take advantage of the chaos and storm the space bridge. Starscream was forced to kill him.” Rattrap shrugged. “Couldn’t be helped.”

“I see.” Onslaught replied, his voice deathly cold. “Thank you for notifying me, soldier.” Rattrap’s brow furrowed.

“Ain’t a soldier no more, big bot. Politics is my game.” He converted into beast form. “Anyhow, I need to get moving. See you around.” He skittered down the hall and out of sight. Onslaught watched the corridor for a while, and then stepped inside.

***

Saying Onslaught had liked Swindle would be an exaggeration. For a while, he’d had a certain tolerance for him. When he needed something for a mission, Swindle could get it, no questions asked. In combat, he was actually a capable soldier, when he wasn’t indulging himself in looting every corpse he could find. In the end, though, this hadn’t been enough for Swindle, and he slipped away from the Combaticons like a thief in the night.

They’d met a few times in between then, sometimes being forced into uneasy alliances, other times chasing after each other. Once, Banzaitron had actually sent the Combaticons to kill him. They found his hideout, and after Brawl gave the door a severe pummelling, found only a cache of engex marked “To my old pals”. Onslaught always assumed that either he or one of his men would kill Swindle, or an Autobot lawman would throw him in jail. But to get killed by Starscream, of all mechs? That was practically an insult.

Around an hour after Rattrap’s visit, Onslaught called up the remaining Combaticons. First he called up Garboil, a member of Soundwave’s spy network. After some light threatening he was able to convince the Cryocondor to contact his master with a message to be passed on to Brawl. Onslaught contemplated a group photo on his desk. Poor Brawl. Ever since the return to Cybertron, he’d been in a constant state of frustration, what with his constant supply of heads to bust suddenly drying up. Galvatron’s promise of war on Earth had been music to his ears. Onslaught couldn’t stop him.

Blast Off was next. Onslaught had expected him not to answer his communicator, but the reply was near immediate.

“I heard,” said Blast Off, his quiet voice masked by a crackle which told Onslaught that the shuttle was in orbit. “I assume you’re asking me to the funeral?”

“Ordering, actually.” Onslaught replied. There was a chuckle.

“You do realise you’re not actually my commander anymore, right? The war’s over.”

“Blast Off, I have one question. Are you a neutral now?”

“No?”

“Then you’re still a Decepticon and still under my command. I’ll see you there.” Blast Off’s vocal synthesiser clicked and he hung up. Onslaught stood silent for a moment and then called Vortex. The communicator rang three times before the interrogator answered.

“Hi boss,” said Vortex. “What’s happening?” Onslaught wondered not for the first time how a bot with no mouth could have a voice with such heavy ventilation.

“Swindle’s funeral,” replied Onslaught. Vortex chuckled into his communicator.

“Oho, that little thing,” he said softly. “I’m surprised they’re not holding a wake, I heard they’re all the rage these days. Did you hear they held a wake for Thunderclash before he actually _died_?”

“No.”

“Fragger turned out to be still alive. What a disappointment, right? Oh, by the way, don’t ask me how I found that out.”

“How _did-_ “

Vortex chuckled again. “Shush shush shush. We can keep it a secret.” Onslaught ground his dental plates. Vortex was good at his job, but he could run his mouth.

“Vortex,” Onslaught growled. “Stop fucking around! You’re coming to this funeral with me, like it or not.” There was a pause, as if Vortex’s eyes were widening in delight, and then the sound of incessant giggling.

“Oh, my gosh! Offworld cursing, huh? You’re that _pissed off_?” He exclaimed. “Hey, see, I can do it too!” Onslaught did not reply to this. Instead, he reached down on to his desk and squeezed until there was a dent in the edge. After a second, Vortex spoke again.

“Oh, are you doing that thing where you squish the table’s edge until you calm down? Jeez, boss, you know I don’t mean the things I say like, eighty percent of the time. Listen, of course I’m coming to the funeral. See you there.” There was a click, and he was gone. Onslaught vented, and relaxed.

He had his support team ready. Good. Now he just had to get through the funeral itself.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading this! The Combaticons have always been some of my favourite Decepticons, so I've been hoping for a while now that they'd come to the fore a bit in IDW. You can imagine my irritation about Swindle constantly coming to the fore, and yet I'm saddened by his death. So, I wrote this fic about Onslaught dealing with it. There's a lot of headcanon here.
> 
> Oh, when Onslaught and Vortex are cursing at each other, they're probably speaking in Korean, as they were stationed in North Korea after All Hail Megatron.


End file.
